Nourishing Poems from Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs
What if food was to daily practice what breath is to meditation?
Hello everyone — sorry today's post is so late! Been a busy day: Dawn just got back from two weeks on retreat at Spirit Rock, and we had a lot to catch up on, sitting in a backyard garden. :)To send you off to sleep dreaming of the earth and liberation (or welcome you awake, if you read this in the morning), I'm deeply glad to share poems from the incredible activist, organizer, poet, teacher, culture-maker, and "community accountable scholar" (her own lovely phrase), Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs. Thank you for being with us!
~ Katie for Turning Wheel Media
3 Poems and the Rocket Fuel of Dreams
What if food was to daily practice what breath is to meditation? The through line, the grounding place to return to the present reality, the passage way for being. Maybe it is. What attention would we give our food, where would we pause to eat, who would we eat near if food was to our bodies what breath is to our spirits?And is it not?I have the blessing of being in community with some deep and stellar food justice practitioners who feed me. Literally. A significant percentage of the food I eat is grown by people who I am growing with spiritually and intellectually in this lifetime. What a blessing!But still I have the experience some days of consuming food that is filling without being nourishing. I am like this planet, seeking alignment. I am like this ant-hill of human beings, continuing to invest in materials that do not affirm my being out of habit and convenience.
But I know what nourishment is. The work that I do in the world, the spirit work of black feminist love, is supported financially and spiritually by a community of people known and unknown to me who make themselves fellow travelers in my journey by so many shapes of saying yes. Each of the poems below is dedicated to someone who has tangibly supported my work to study with black feminist elders and to take sacred journeys to places of spiritual significance in the history and legacy of black feminist brilliance. It matters to me that one poem is dedicated to someone who I know personally and have worked in community with and two are dedicated to strangers who have supported my work without knowing me personally. Just like about a third of my food comes from loved ones who I know and the majority comes from people who are offering their energy from far away in such an intimately relevant way.In these poems I think about language and how it feeds us. I think about nourishment, and exhaustion and dreams. I think about the future we deserve and who that future is asking us to be.May we eat only truth, trust in the rocket fuel of our dreams. May our words, fresh with presence align our spirits and feed the moment. May everything that is not love fall away. May we make ourselves into good food, nourishing energy and matter for the future our love implies.Love, Alexis
Poet
For Roberto Tijerina After Audre Lorde’s “Thanks to Jesse Jackson” say it like bridgespell it like splinterthese are the timeswhen words need carpentersthink out loud reshapinginto places to sit and meetand walk and not fall throughwrite it like ricegrowing hot and irresistibleundercover in the watched pot of revolutionspell it like cauldronthese are the yearswhen we eat our wordswhen the boil-over of desireis the table we build by sharingtrain our tongues to be transsend ground tap rhythm of meaninggenerate light like a helmetin the mineslike a tread in the sloopin the loop down of questionthis is itthe time when each wordwake tonguecatch fire to earclean throat back to pinkwhen each wordsear like prophecy on our heartsthis is the momentwe all becomepoets.
Flight
For Romham GallacherAfter Audre Lorde’s “Depreciation” First the banksthen the river run rightthrough the treasurythen vehicles that transport gasdon’t have gas to runno more.Between the corporate credit computer crashthe downfall of drummed up debt worldwideand the heirloom seed-bomb airliftthere is plenty to eatand nowhere to hide.
Land
For Chanelle Gallant After Audre Lorde’s “Peace on Earth”a star fell last nightas I drove myselfalmost out of gastires pattern baldfrom skating the edgeof not enoughon autopilotand where did it landheaven droppressure of wishesdid you see iti ate french friesand absently sketcheda veggie fuel rocket enginea self-contained compost toiletan ethical escapeand told myselfa falling star is not a bombwhat atmospheric freezemust crack before I wake up.Alexis Pauline Gumbs 2011